Light in Times of Darkness
August 2022 / Av 5782
Shalom, Salaam, Aloha, Howdy!
So begins our podcast, “To Life! / The Hope Behind the Headlines”. It is a joy to produce these messages and your prayers and support help us to make it happen
In this newsletter, I want to briefly teach about Tisha B’ Av (the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av). It is a time to commemorate the corrections of the Lord and the severity of the nations in dealing with Israel and the Jewish people.
Along these lines, click here to check out a podcast on “Back to Jerusalem” with Dr. Eugene Bach. It is entitled, “Major Denomination Labels Israel Racist”.
This weekend marks the historical Temple destruction and various calamities that have come upon the Jewish people and Israel over the centuries. In Jewish thought it is tied to the UNBELIEF of the 10 spies. Remember, Moses sent Joshua and Caleb into the Land with 10 others.
Will we believe the Report of the Lord? (Isaiah53) - OR…
Numbers 13:32-33
They spread among Bnei-Yisrael a bad report about the land they had explored, saying, “The land through which we passed to explore devours its residents. All the people we saw there are men of great size! We also saw there the Nephilim. (The sons of Anak are from the Nephilim.) We seemed like grasshoppers in our eyes as well as theirs!
”The sin of unbelief exists to this day… it’s the root of our turnings away from God and Messiah.
The destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C. occurred on the 9th of Av!
Other tragedies associated with this date:
In 135 C.E., the Bar Kochba Revolt was quashed and hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were killed. After the Revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed Judea’s name to Syria Palestina after Israel’s long-time enemy, the Philistines
In 136 C.E., Hadrian leveled what remained of the Temple in Jerusalem, leaving only what we know today as the Temple Mount
Tisha B’Av is preceded by three weeks of mourning, beginning on the 17th of Tammuz, marking the day that the Romans breached Jerusalem’s walls in 69 C.E. The event led to the Temple’s destruction in 70 A.D. Mourning intensifies on Av 1 through the 9th.
In 1096 C.E., the first Crusade officially began. Thousands of Jewish people were killed or persecuted during these campaigns attempting to force them to convert to “Christianity”
The banishment of all Jewish people from England in 1290 by King Edward
The final day for Jewish people to leave Spain after the expulsion order of 1492
The beginning of the Nazis’ deportation of Jewish people from Warsaw to Treblinka in 1942
Yeshua said, “BE OF GOOD CHEER. I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD!” (John 16:33)
The Rabbis say, Tisha B’Av may be the most sorrowful day in the year, but in the ‘olam haba’ [the world to come] it will be the most joyous day!
God has, is, and will overcome!THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY!
This month we are supporting the Israeli Ethiopians in their receiving the Gospel, making Aliyah to Israel and being established in Israeli society. Your donations make this possible.
As always,
Thank you for loving what God loves… the best is yet to come!
With gratitude,
Myles and Katharine